Public Lands: Talking it Out

A maybe not-so-strange thing became more apparent around a decade ago. While it wasn’t so uncommon to see snowmobile tracks (snowmobile/snowmachine tomato/tomatoe) in designated wilderness around Bend, Oregon, it wasn’t exactly uncommon, either. All things considered, Bend has an ample amount of designated wilderness, roughly 20 miles west of downtown. The Three Sisters Wilderness is our go-to destination for winter recreation, whether sliding on skis or a splitboard. Depending on where you access the wilderness area, which isn’t exactly massive, you can count on a semi-flat/rolling approach on skins or foot. If you have access to a snowmobile, approaches are a bit easier. Those rolling six miles to the wilderness boundary at Broken Top are reduced to 20 minutes with a machine (30-40 if, like me, you are a weenie with a throttle). Of course, with the combustion-engine assist, you miss out on some fine old-growth quietude.  

At the boundary, ski/ride tourists park their steeds and go about the human-powered portion of their day. Around midday, they return and zoom back to the trailhead and load up. Although the local range here, the one protected by wilderness, seems sizable, it houses four sizable volcanoes (Broken Top, South Sister, Middle Sister, and the North Sister). Considering the vastness of the Rockies, the Sierra, or the North Cascades, as I’ve noted before, is tidy. And like other places, we have different user groups advocating for access.